Kent Teague
Clayton Utz
Special Counsel
Sydney
Overview
Kent is a Special Counsel in the Intellectual Property and Technology team, who specialises in intellectual property and technology dispute resolution. Kent has extensive experience in pharmaceutical/life sciences, information technology, traditional & new media, and privacy/data protection matters.
Kent's practice includes large and complex litigation, especially pharmaceutical patent litigation. He also regularly advises on other aspects of intellectual property strategy and enforcement, online content liability, and consumer law claims involving statutory misleading or deceptive conduct / passing off. With relevant technical background through his Bachelor of Science with a major in chemistry, Kent is known for his ability to rapidly assimilate, and communicate, complex ideas and technical concepts.
Kent is admitted to practice in both Australia (NSW) and New Zealand, and is also a registered Australian trade marks attorney. Kent also holds a Master of Intellectual Property.
Notable Work
- Novartis: Acting in patent infringement and validity/revocation proceedings against generic company in the Federal Court, in relation to the blockbuster heart failure combination drug Entresto (sacubitril/valsartan). Also acted in patent infringement and validity/revocation proceedings in relation to Novartis' blockbuster multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya (fingolimod).
- Merck Sharp & Dohme: Acted for MSD in Federal Court proceedings against Bristol Myers Squibb regarding a competition law dispute about the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; pricing in Australia of their respective oncology drugs Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy (ipilimumab); and alleged misuse of market power by BMS.
- Alexion: Acting for Alexion in relation to loss of exclusivity project concerning specialized biologic medicine Soliris (eculizumab) and other biological medicines.
- Facebook & Instagram: Acted for Facebook and Instagram in Federal Court of Australia proceedings involving commercial contractual disputes, alleged contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law and alleged misuse of market power claims.
- Sandoz: Acting for Sandoz in relation to longstanding litigation concerning SSRI drug Lexapro (escitalopram) in complex web of proceedings in the Federal Court, High Court, Patent Office and Administrative Appeals Tribunal, including in proceedings concerning relatively untested provisions of the Australian Patents Act.
- Novartis: Regularly advises in relation to intellectual property strategy, market access, and various loss-of-exclusivity projects for a number of confidential matters.
- Health Infrastructure NSW: Advising in relation to patent and other intellectual property matters during the development of a world-leading Viral Vector Manufacturing Facility.
- Sandoz: Acting for Sandoz and successfully resisting orders for preliminary discovery in proceedings brought by Pfizer seeking access to confidential documents concerning manufacturing processes for Sandoz’s biosimilar version of Enbrel (etanercept).
- Optus: Successfully acted for Optus in proceedings brought by Telstra alleging contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law in relation to Optus' advertising campaign about network coverage.
- Privacy/Data protection: Advising small and large multinational corporate clients on various privacy, data protection, GDPR regulatory and compliance matters.
- Data breach: Advised multinational technology service provider in relation to commercial dispute and contractual liability, arising from major data security breach.
- Social media: Advising and acting for multinational internet service providers in court proceedings regarding potential liability for third party content, accessible via their online platforms. Also regularly advises in relation to content take-down requests and disputes concerning alleged liability for content.
- Google: Advising and acting for Google in defence of defamation claims for content accessible via the Google Search Engine. Also acting in separate proceedings testing the interplay between criminal name suppression and non-publication orders and the Google Search Engine.
- National Storage: Acting for successful defendant in High Court of NZ and successful respondent in NZ Court of Appeal, in proceedings involving alleged misleading / deceptive conduct & passing off, through the use of similar trade names and in particular as used in Google Ads.
- Sellman v Slater: Acted for defendants and appeared in High Court of NZ defamation proceedings at hearings concerning defamation and social media, testing the availability of the internet 'single publication rule' and Jameel abuse of process in New Zealand.
- nbn Co: Advising Australia's national broadband provider, nbn Co, on various contractual interpretation and intellectual property issues.
Insights
Tribunal grants Sandoz a section 223(9) patent licence, in long-running Lexapro litigation
15 Oct 2024 | Article
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Media Release: Clayton Utz announces 1 July 2024 senior promotions
1 Jul 2024 | Media Release
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Sandoz secures a stay in the long-running escitalopram litigation
27 Jul 2023 | Article
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Commonwealth loses appeal in Clopidogrel PBS damages undertaking case: important lessons for patentees and generics alike
27 Jun 2023 | Article
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Legislation needed on patentability of computer-implemented inventions, after High Court divided in rare 3:3 judgment
18 Aug 2022 | Article
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Pharmaceutical patent term extensions now back to the "earliest first" approach, the Full Federal Court confirms
31 Mar 2022 | Article
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Orders Without Borders: Australia's new law allows authorities access to data from communications service providers
2 Sep 2021 | Article
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Patent term extensions in Australia: when first isn't really first
8 Jul 2021 | Article
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Australian High Court adopts doctrine of exhaustion of patent rights: Refurbished printer cartridges do not infringe
13 Nov 2020 | Article
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"Context is all": Court confirms test and principles for false, misleading or deceptive conduct
1 Oct 2020 | Article
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Media Release: Clayton Utz announces 1 July 2020 senior promotions
27 Jul 2020 | Media Release
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